removing spaces from front and end of filenames

[Bengt Richter]

On 13 Jul 2003 08:44:05 -0700, hokiegal99 at hotmail.com (hokiegal99) wrote:

>Erik Max Francis <max at alcyone.com> wrote in message news:<3F10BABB.D548961B at alcyone.com>...
>> hokiegal99 wrote:
>> 
>> > This script works as I expect, except for the last section. I want the
>> > last section to actually remove all spaces from the front and/or end
>> > of
>> > filenames. For example, a file that was named "  test  " would be
>> > renamed "test" (the 2 spaces before and after the filename removed).
>> > Any
>> > suggestions on how to do this?
>> 
>> That's what the .strip method, which is what you're using, does.  If
>> it's not working for you you're doing something else wrong.
>
>for root, dirs, files in os.walk('/home/rbt/scripts'):
>     for file in files:
>         fname = (file)
>         fname = fname.strip( )
>print fname
>
>When I print fname, it prints the filenames w/o spaces (a file named "
>test " looks like "test"), but when I ls the actual files in the
>directory they still contain spaces at both ends. That's what I don't
>understand. It seems that .strip is ready to remove the spaces, but
>that it needs one more step to actually do so. Any ideas?
I don't see where you rename " test " to "test" ;-)

BTW, file is a builtin name for the file class, which creates open file objects,
so it's best to use another name.

Maybe change that last loop to (untested!)

for root, dirs, files in os.walk('/home/rbt/scripts'):
    for fname in files:
        newfile = fname.strip( )
        if newfile != fname:
            newpath = os.path.join(root,newfile)
            oldpath = os.path.join(root,fname)
            os.rename(oldpath,newpath)
            print `oldpath` # back ticks to print repr to make sure you can see spaces
	    print `newpath`

Regards,
Bengt Richter